


Annealing

by GoldenGarter



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Cults, Don't Scream Because It's All in Your Head?, Human Sacrifice, Hux Idolizes His Mother, M/M, Some Inventive Cursing, Wraith AU, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 03:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7249735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenGarter/pseuds/GoldenGarter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't decide which is worse: being the political scapegoat for his Mother's last living Consort or being the literal scapegoat of the kingdom he was supposed to rule. If it weren't for the selection being decidedly not-random, he would have said the political part. As it is, the logistics of trying to escape being drained of blood this evening pushes the literal sacrifice side to victory. Hux was never a man of strong faith... but imminent death tends to change that.</p><p>Hux is just hoping that there actually is a half-god buried under the castle... and that he's pissed enough at being caged for centuries to save his neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Annealing

Chamber door. Corridor. Five steps down.

 

Faster.

 

Turn right. Corridor.

 

Faster.

 

Two minutes until this rotation passes the Quarry Door. Through the Hall of Portraits. Mother watches from her frame.

 

She wouldn’t have let this happen. Not to him. She would have killed her Prince Consort for daring. For suggesting. He won’t let it happen under her oily watch. The setting sun paints the corridors blood red.

 

Don’t cut through any of the courtyards. Stay away from the West Wing. They’re preparing for the first leg of the March right now. Thirty minutes at least before they’ll move to the second leg. They’re forgoing tradition to speed the process. To hasten it to the natural conclusion.  
  


He’ll make it in twenty. Fifteen minutes to get past the Door, get his answer, and return.

 

Five minutes to fake an escape attempt to throw them off if needed.  


  
… Five minutes to make a real escape if he doesn’t get a positive answer.

 

The guard rotation passes as he watches from around the corner. His clothing too bright and garish for much stealth. But they think he’ll run. And so most of the Interior Royal Guard watches the perimeter of the Palace. Pacing around the exterior doors rather than the interior ones. He’s no bull or lamb to be unknowingly led to the slaughter. They don’t think— no one would believe— that he would willing step closer to that butcher’s block.

 

That he would invite his butcher to tea time.

 

  
The Quarry Door opens after some grappling with the etched stone. It is meant to keep the dead out, not the living. Or even the soon-to-be-dead like him.

 

The air is damp and cool like a cellar. It is more cave-like though with the roughhewn ceilings stretching upwards. He doesn’t need a torch to find his way, only a hand on the wall to his right.  


 

The labyrinth leading to Seal is no longer a challenge to him. He’s walked its path twenty three times since he was old enough to attend the yearly March.

 

Fifteen minutes left.

 

Faster.

 

The stone of the walls seems to quiver at his trailing touch. Sounds like whispers and the clicking of claws on slate crowds his ears. Trying to scare him. His hand has been forced so there is little to fear and much to be done.   


  
He’d looked forward to each year’s March; to setting off the year right with feasting and sacrifice. He supposes this year is no different.

 

… Even if he’s meant to be the proverbial skewered boar on the dining plate.

 

He stops before the final arch that opens into the Seal Room proper. He knows from ceremonies past that the room is wide and open with grooves carved into the floor to channel the blood away from the centermost point of the room. That was the where the seal, and the demigod it constrained, resided. 

  
In the darkness he would not be able to see the crisply scorched delineation of the Seal. Nor the roiling storm cloud that hovered above it. 

  
He had a great speech planned. The perfect delivery of his ultimatum. That was before the March was pushed ahead of schedule by five days. There simply isn’t time for grandiose overtures.   


  
“I’m to be the sacrifice tonight.”

 

There, it’s out in the open. It’s been said but there’s no poignant change in the atmosphere. There’s just Hux, feeling small and clutching at the stone wall. Hoping that all those pained sounds over the last twenty three years weren’t made by monks hiding behind corners. Scaring the nobility into fearing the shadows. Into keeping the coffers of the Temple full lest some “ancient evil” be unleashed.

 

He wastes three minutes in the silence. Despite the clammy nature of the grounds within the Quarry Door there’s sweat beading on the back of his neck. He’s wasted these thirty minutes when he could have been planning an actual escape rather than chasing fairytales. Wasted all those years of cultivating his interest in the warfare of the past. Enduring the scorn of the staff and his father. Chasing after the glory of the vast empires of the past when he should have been focusing on how to be content to manage their small kingdom.

 

His discontent with what he was allotted is well known. His animosity towards the “King” (he would always be a Prince Consort; he was not worthy of Mother’s crown) and his siblings is known.   


  
He had painted a target on his back.  Had relied too heavily on being the most suitable choice for an heir. Had banked too hard on his father making logical, impartial decisions even as his health deteriorated.

 

He’s going to be sick.

 

The clenching, clawing beast in his chest has been devouring his entrails since he received the news. Since he received the missive from the Head Monk. His father could not face him. Couldn’t even stand to send one of his siblings to break the news.

 

Whether it came from further paranoia of attack or some modicum of shame he’d gained in the years of his decline Hux didn’t know.

 

The beast that claws him up inside is not fear. His mother had stripped him of fear as a child. She had favored him with all the skills needed to rule.

  
  
No, the beast is rage. Rage at the insult. Rage at the audacity of the other members of House Hux. Why would you lame your prize horse? Break the tempering of your blade?

 

It didn’t make sense. None of it made logical sense. No matter how incompetent, Hux would not turn on his own house. Would not dash his mother’s legacy onto the rocks out of spite.   


  
He has too much energy. He was getting worked up and had lost track of the time. It didn’t matter. No. No. He had to calm down and go back over the lists. Find allies. Find a plan. Set the plan in motion.  
  


He needed to think and thinking required the body to be occupied and silent. To be taken out of the issue completely. So he shoves off the arch, and begins walking a circuit in the circular room. The grueling pace he sets winds him. He’s weighted down with crushed velvet and jewelry from the banquet this morning.

 

There is still too much noise coming from his body to think. Too many social niceties he had neglected. He had never been outright rude or consciously burned bridges but he simply wasn’t inclined to interact without purpose. He never saw the point up until now. If he had ever been inclined to spawn children of his own perhaps they could have been of use now. One to lead an attack on the southwest perimeter; to distract. Another to lead a smaller force over the wall in the northeast corner that needed to be refortified. There were endless possibilities of things he could have done to prevent this from happening.   
  


He could feel it bubbling up. He stops with hands clenched at his sides. The tailoring of the tunic prevents him from clasping them behind his back. He turns stiffly on his heel, keenly aware of how the echoes of his panting bounce back to him.

 

When he finds a pleasing position he opens his mouth and screams.

 

For as long and as loud as his throat could bear.

 

He screeches into this room. The twenty-fourth cacophony for the twenty-fourth year.   


  
He isn’t expecting the answering roar that sends him wheeling backwards.  

 

The piercing howl cuts off abruptly leaving Hux wheezing in the dark. There is something… there is something in the dark. It is like an ember, feeble and chalky white. Like little curls and strips of ash that float in the room and softly glow. The bits of charcoal lazily spin and pulse as Hux struggles to get back to his feet.  

 

The laughter is near-punched out of him through his ragged throat. Why is he laughing like a mad man? His lungs were burning and he could taste burning flesh in the air. His palms had been cut up from the grit and shards of black stone on the floor.

 

Relief. He’s relieved.

 

The emotion only swells as a glimmer of red appears amongst the ash gently falling in a mimicry of snow. Interesting.   


  
Hux edges closer to the center of the room, slowly circling around the column of glowing embers. The lip of the blood trench glints in the red light. Hux steps over the furrow.

 

“My, my, everyone’s a bit eager this year… The monks are nearly to tears and conniptions and now the nobility is visiting.” The voice is a disjointed rumble from two opposing directions that sweep over Hux in waves.    


  
He had never heard the wraith speak before. Scream and hiss. Howl and cry. So many sounds at the end of each Sacrifice March but always wordless. Never this overfamiliar rasp.

 

“Pity for them. They’re not the ones being gussied up and strutted down into this pit.” He scowls back towards the arch he came from as if expecting the monks to come rushing in at any moment to drag him away.  


“What, is white not your color? Does it wash you out?”

 

Hux glances back at the seal in exasperation. There is something forming within the flurry of ash. Squirming sigils of red pressing up against the invisible barrier that keeps the wraith inside. Like burning insects or sparks, the tiny sigils, no bigger than the nail of his pinkie finger, dash themselves to pieces just above and in front of Hux’s head.

 

They streak down the wall of the seal like water on a pane of glass.

 

“I can deal right off with the white, it’s the entrails becoming extrails that I take issue with.”  

 

“… I am sure they are perfectly lovely and won’t ruin the outfit,” the wraith warbled. His voice was too soft for a monstrosity born of death. Hux wants the screeching back. The rage and fury. He wants a beast he could unleash.

 

Between the ash and sigils there was something akin to a figure that Hux could properly look at and level a frosty glare at. He isn’t sure if the wraith can actually _see_ anything though.

 

“Enough, you saucy tart! I don’t have the time for this. For anything!” He took a shuddering breath before jabbing harshly towards what should be the creature’s face.  “The March starts tonight and I plan to see the sun rise again over this castle. And when the first light hits the ramparts I will be the only Hux with their head still attached to their shoulders. Gods above and below willing, I will see it done!”

 

He feels manic with energy. As if some part of the creature had seeped past the seal and filled him. As if he is breathing ash and fire already and only needs to turn it towards the castle occupants.

 

“… no, I suppose the blood would clash with your hair. So why are you here? Did you need advice on how best to commit patricide?”

 

Hux sneers at the wraith. “No. I need advice on how exactly one goes about breaking your barmy arse out. I won’t be able to move once I’ve been decked like a peacock for the ceremony. The robes are too heavy and my feet will be chained together. So if there’s some manner of preparation needed it has to be done now.”

 

 “I want you to know, Hux, that this is the most aggressively incompetent jailbreak I have ever witnessed.”

 

“Well then! I shall leave you to your pit then, you wretched cur! And if I am to have any pleasure tonight it will be from the knowledge that I will be responsible for your pathetic mewls of pain!” He hisses and turns his back on the wraith.

 

His thirty minutes must have passed some time ago. If he hurries perhaps he will miss the second pass of the guard rotation and make it somewhat closer to his rooms before his is found. He’ll pass it off as wanting to see the Hall of Portraits one last time.

 

“Your Highness! Such salacious speech! I am a man of refinement and expect to be courted proper-like,” mocks the wraith. “Or perhaps the Prince doesn’t court at all and has to toss coins for bedfellows~?”

 

Enraged, Hux stomps back over to jab angrily at the swirl of red. There’s no conscious thought to whatever slurs he tosses at the wraith. He’s ashamed for not being able to answer the insult one way or the other.   


His anger stirred, Hux doesn’t notice when his boot passes over the scorched stone marking the seal line.   


  
It’s not until the ash and sigils, previously behind that unseen wall, are buffeting around him that Hux realizes he has been baited. He can’t see through the wall of grey and searing red light. He can’t move as there’s something clutching his arms, pulling them back and ripping the seams of his tunic with the motion.

 

The beast of rage that sits atop his guts and licks at his spasming lungs howls.

 

Again. It’s happened again. He doesn’t understand anything anymore. Why would the wraith kill him when he offered to free it? Was it so petty as to be offended when he wouldn’t play along with its games? Endure its insults?

 

His mind and body are burning. His eyes water and sting from the thick scent of wood smoke. There’s something pressing along the length of his shoulder, nape, and side of his neck. Is the wraith trying to snap his neck? He’s not dead yet. He won’t go willingly.

 

There’s a tug and snap as the heavy gold necklaces are torn off his neck. His right earring gets caught in the motion and tears out as well. Blood runs down his neck. He snarls and howls like that beast inside him, nearly retching with the strain on his muscles as he struggles to escape. He’s destined for better things. He has a world to see beyond this tiny seaside kingdom where it always rains. He has infantries and monuments and that stupid schematic for the luxurious baths that he wanted to see built.

 

“Well aren’t you a lively spitfire…” murmurs the wraith behind him in one resonant voice. No longer split in twain by the barrier.

 

 “And I’ll fuckin’ stay that way you utter cocksmear!” Hux screeches as he thrashes. He gnashes his teeth as he twists trying to bite whatever he can. Incorporeal or not he’s gonna find a way to take a chunk out of the wraith.

 

He’s burning. He’s become a blacksmith’s kiln. Something carefully kept lidded until the door is opened and flames jet out. The undead are weak to fire, aren’t they? He’ll burn the bastard with him. He’s set to ignite.

 

“That’s the thing: fire doesn’t take sides.”  It sounds like the wraith is in his head and bones now.

 

The pressure along his shoulder and neck moves. The plume of ash darkens from grey to pitch black. The sigils have become like lightning forking around him. Suddenly he’s utterly unrestrained with his stomach lurching in freefall. The air that rushes out of his mouth sends sparks and tiny coals sputtering up above. He’s falling inside the black plume of smoke watching the fire-trail he’s sputtering circle up and up.

 

He flails his arms out for something to grip and clenches his eyes shut. The spiral of sparks is burned into his eyelids. His hands hit something dense and spongey. Flesh. It’s the curve of an arm.

 

The wraith laughs in his scrunched up face as they fall. With a sound somewhere between a war cry and a sob he grapples blindly clawing at the creatures back. The wraith cries out as if he finally managed to wound him. Hux can’t open his eyes. He digs his fingers harder into the broad back.

 

There’s breathing at his temple and then large arms are being draped over his shoulders. The wraith doesn’t dig his claws into Hux’s back. There’s just a constant pressure pushing them together, chest to chest. The beast under his lungs keeps his ribs from breaking, from imploding under the increasing pressure.

 

Hux knows there’s a jugular just down and to his left. His forehead keeps smacking into the cheek and jaw of the wraith as they tumble down. Logically if he has a head he must have a neck to connect it to the shoulders Hux grappled with.

 

He thinks about tearing out the other’s throat. It’s a struggle to get his mouth open, to get it fitted properly what with them being pressed so close together. There are sigils overtaking the afterimage of the fire spiral.   
  


His jaw twitches. He’s about to bite down.

 

And then the falling sensation stops. The pressure eases to something akin to wearing a girdle: ever-present but not crushing. Gasping, he opens his eyes. His teeth click shut on empty air.

 

He’s outside the Quarry Door.

 

Stumbling backwards Hux looks down at himself. His clothes are pristine. The seams are intact. The strings of gold and precious stones around his neck are intact. His half-crown is nestled in his unruffled hair.

 

He touches his neck, his ear. He’s not bleeding. There’s no pain.

 

His feet move as if of their own accord, at first walking him blindly backwards away from the door. Ten paces then he turns away from the Quarry Door and marches back the way he came. Just before the Hall of Portraits he stops.  There’s a large window letting in the light from the setting sun.

 

The sun still hasn’t set. He’s been gone for almost an hour. He must have been. At least enough time should have passed walking the maze for the sun to set.

 

Has any time passed? Has time slid backwards?  


 

He doesn’t know anything anymore. Everything he has known has been jostled and thrown into the air.

 

He stumbles to his mother’s portrait. The artist had captured the faintest twitch of amusement in her lips. Hux remembers her thin-lipped smiles full of teeth.

 

“I am lost, Mother. I am burning.”

 

At some point he unbuttons his tunic enough to sit down. His wrists rest on his bent knees as he watches the hall drain of the red color from the sun. Soon there is only the pale blue-grey of nighttime.

 

The monks find him a few minutes later, frantic when he was not in the rooms they had locked him in hours ago. He lets them usher him into standing, into following them to get ready for the March. The guards accompanying them hover in the distance.

 

He feels like he swallowed the Sun somehow in that hallway. As if the sun will not rise again on this castle.

 

_I am lost. I am burning. It is divine._

None of the monks seem to hear the echo that reaches out after his thoughts in a two-toned voice.

 

**_I am divine._ **

 

**Author's Note:**

> What started as a simple doodle became a giant au. I can never finish multichaptered pieces so I might just do some vignettes at different points in their story. You can find art and further snippets of story on my tumblr (goldengarter) under the "wraith au" tag.


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